RESUMEN
Fearing the negative effect that alcohol advertising might have on adolescents' receptiveness to the consumption of alcohol, health educators have used media literacy as an effective strategy to mitigate the effect of these messages in the media. The present study applied parental mediation to the design and evaluations of a media literacy curriculum that targets alcohol decision-making processes illustrated in the message interpretation process model. The authors conducted a pretest-posttest quasi-experiment of 171 adolescents to examine the effect of a negative evaluative approach and a balanced evaluative approach (a combination of negative and positive evaluative strategies) to media literacy on modifying adolescents' responses to alcohol messages. Results showed that different media literacy approaches had varying degrees of effectiveness on adolescent boys and girls. After receiving a negative media literacy lesson, adolescent boys regarded television characters as less realistic and believed that drinking alcohol had negative consequences. In contrast, adolescent girls benefited more from a balanced evaluative approach as their media skepticism attitude was enhanced. Results suggest that health educators should choose tailored pedagogical approaches that are based on gender to improve decision making regarding alcohol consumption.
Asunto(s)
Publicidad/métodos , Consumo de Bebidas Alcohólicas/psicología , Alfabetización Informacional , Medios de Comunicación de Masas , Adolescente , Consumo de Bebidas Alcohólicas/prevención & control , Actitud Frente a la Salud , Niño , Toma de Decisiones , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Factores SexualesRESUMEN
This study examined underage drinkers' responses to negative-restrictive versus proactive-nonrestrictive slogans in humorous anti-alcohol abuse advertisements. The authors conducted a posttest-only control group experiment with 91 teenagers and college-aged participants. For underage moderate drinkers, the negative-restrictive slogans (e.g., "Don't drink") increased participants' perceived risk of excessive drinking and increased a level of intention to change their drinking behavior. However, for underage binge drinkers, the negative-restrictive slogans lowered participants' risk perception of excessive drinking and intention to change their drinking behavior.
Asunto(s)
Alcoholismo/prevención & control , Comunicación en Salud/métodos , Promoción de la Salud/métodos , Ingenio y Humor como Asunto , Adolescente , Consumo de Bebidas Alcohólicas/psicología , Actitud Frente a la Salud , Femenino , Humanos , Intención , Masculino , Evaluación de Programas y Proyectos de Salud , Medición de Riesgo , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
This study was a theory-based, pretest-posttest quasi-experiment conducted in the field (N = 922) to determine whether and how a media literacy curriculum addressing sexual portrayals in the media would influence adolescents' decision-making processes regarding sex. Results of the evaluation, based on the Message Interpretation Process Model, indicated that participants who received media literacy training better understood that media influence teens' decision making about sex and were more likely to report that sexual depictions in the media are inaccurate and glamorized. In addition, participants who received media literacy lessons were more likely than were control group participants to believe that other teens practice abstinence and reported a greater ability to resist peer pressure. An interaction effect existed between gender and condition on attitudes toward abstinence, suggesting that the lessons helped girls and boys in somewhat different ways. Overall, the results indicated that media literacy strengthened key aspects of participants' logic-oriented decision-making process.
Asunto(s)
Conducta del Adolescente , Conocimientos, Actitudes y Práctica en Salud , Alfabetización Informacional , Medios de Comunicación de Masas , Conducta Sexual , Adolescente , Niño , Toma de Decisiones , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Grupo Paritario , Embarazo , Embarazo en Adolescencia/prevención & control , Factores Sexuales , Enfermedades de Transmisión Sexual/prevención & control , Televisión , WashingtónRESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: To describe sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption and to establish psychometric properties and utility of a Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) instrument for SSB consumption. METHODS: This cross-sectional survey included 119 southwest Virginia participants. Most of the respondents were female (66%), white (89%), and had at least a high school education (79%), and their average age was 41.4 ± 13.5 years. A validated beverage questionnaire was used to measure SSB. Eleven TPB constructs were assessed with a 56-item instrument. Analyses included descriptive statistics, 1-way ANOVA, Cronbach α, and multiple regression. RESULTS: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake averaged 457 ± 430 kcal/d. The TPB model provided a moderate explanation of SSB intake (R(2) = 0.38; F = 13.10, P < .01). Behavioral intentions had the strongest relationships with SSB consumption, followed by attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms. The 6 belief constructs did not predict significant variance in the models. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Future efforts to comprehensively develop and implement interventions guided by the TPB hold promise for reducing SSB intake.
Asunto(s)
Bebidas , Sacarosa en la Dieta/administración & dosificación , Conductas Relacionadas con la Salud , Adulto , Anciano , Bebidas/estadística & datos numéricos , Estudios Transversales , Ingestión de Energía , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Obesidad/epidemiología , Psicometría , Análisis de Regresión , Encuestas y Cuestionarios , Virginia/epidemiología , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
The United States has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and birth in the Western industrialized world, and research indicates that television and other mass media are important sources of sexual information for young people. The purpose of this study was to determine if a teen-led, media literacy curriculum focused on sexual portrayals in the media would increase adolescents' awareness of media myths concerning sex, decrease the allure of sexualized portrayals, and decrease positive expectancies for sexual activity. A posttest-only quasi-experiment with control groups was conducted at 22 school and community sites in Washington state (N = 532). The intervention, a 5-lesson media literacy curriculum targeted primarily to middle school students, encouraged sexual abstinence because of federal government funding requirements. Adolescents evaluated the program positively, with 85% rating it as better than other sex education programs. Compared to control-group participants, students were less likely to overestimate sexual activity among teens, more likely to think they could delay sexual activity, less likely to expect social benefits from sexual activity, more aware of myths about sex, and less likely to consider sexual media imagery desirable. The results showed that media literacy has promise as part of a sex education program by providing adolescents with a cognitive framework necessary to understand and resist the influence of media on their decision making concerning sex.
Asunto(s)
Conducta del Adolescente/psicología , Conocimientos, Actitudes y Práctica en Salud , Medios de Comunicación de Masas , Psicología del Adolescente , Educación Sexual , Conducta Sexual/psicología , Adolescente , Niño , Grupos Control , Curriculum , Literatura Erótica , Femenino , Humanos , Imaginación , Masculino , Percepción , Evaluación de Programas y Proyectos de Salud , Características de la Residencia , Instituciones Académicas , Washingtón , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
OBJECTIVES: Channel One is a public-affairs program that includes 10 minutes of news and 2 minutes of paid product advertising or public service announcements. Advocates assert that it increases public-affairs knowledge, but critics charge that it garners a captive audience for teen-targeted advertising. This experiment analyzed the differential effects of Channel One depending on whether early-adolescent viewers received a media-literacy lesson in conjunction with viewing the program. Outcomes included perceptions of Channel One news programming, recall of program content and advertising, materialism, and political efficacy. METHODS: Researchers used a posttest-only field experiment (N = 240) of seventh- and eighth-grade students using random assignment to conditions. Conditions included a control group, a group that received a fact-based lesson, and a group that received the same lesson content using a more emotive teaching style. It was expected that the emotion-added lesson condition would be more effective than the logic-only lesson condition because of its motivational component. RESULTS: On average, students remembered more ads from Channel One than news stories. Participants in the control group remembered fewer news stories than did the groups that received the lessons. Students reported having purchased during the preceding 3 months an average of 2.5 items advertised on the program. Both fact-based and affect-added training increased student skepticism toward advertisers. As expected, student liking of the program enhanced their learning from it and was associated with higher levels of political efficacy. Students held misconceptions about the role of their school in the production of Channel One. CONCLUSIONS: The use of Channel One by schools can have benefits, but these come with risk that some may consider unacceptable. On the positive side, student liking of the program was associated with their political efficacy. Although those who responded positively to program content and presentation style learned more from it, they also tended to want things that they saw in the advertisements. The data therefore show that the program can provide some benefits to young adolescents, but the results also provide justification for concerns about the commercialization of the classroom.